The Long Road from There to Here
by noenigma
Summary: Finally, we're getting somewhere...a look at the Hobson/Lewis moments in The Ramblin' Boy.


_I imagine it's inevitable that sooner or later all of us who wildly cheered when Lewis smiled down at Hobson on that bridge will have to take our best shot at _The Ramblin' Boy_. Even those, like me, who shouldn't. And as though the allure wasn't strong enough on its own, BTA had to have a go at flattering me into giving it a try. I bravely tried to hold out, but…here's my take on all those wonderful Lewis and Hobson—or I guess it's officially Robbie and Laura now—moments…with much gratitude for the powers that be for finally letting these two see the light. _

_Purely for fan purposes. No copyright infringement intended. _

**The Long Road from There to Here**

**_At the Riverside_**

She sat there, nursing her drink and wishing she hadn't agreed to come at all. It would be, like far too many evenings before it, a waste of time. She'd sit there and smile and talk and wish her date for the night would tire of it all and just go home. She wasn't interested…so why did she keep bothering? Stupid, really. But…there you were. Life was a lonely affair, and sometimes she could be cajoled into thinking a bit of harmless flirting over a drink and nice meal beat going home to her empty house. This fellow—a friend of a friend who she'd met a time or two at obligatory dinner parties and whose name she never could remember—was doubtlessly a nice enough chap, but he wasn't who she wanted to spend her evening with.

She swirled the drink around the bottom of her glass and glanced up to see Lewis across the way standing and gazing into the river. Her breath caught in her throat and a small smile touched her lips. For a moment, she considered leaving her drink and forgetting—Darrell, yes, that was it. Darrell…or Darren?—and going to Lewis. She imagined linking her arm through his and strolling along the river while the sun bathed everything in the soft glow of dusk…if she were lucky, he'd walk with her awhile, maybe offer to buy her a pint or two—and maybe even take the time to drink them before getting back to whatever he was working on. And if she wasn't? Well, she'd be spared an evening sitting and laughing with a man she didn't know and didn't want to know.

She sat there a moment too long. Her date walked into view, blocking Lewis from her sight, smiling and waving. She forced a small smile in return—not at all reminiscent of the one that had graced her lips when she'd caught sight of Lewis—and an equally small wave. Behind him, she could see Lewis walking away; she heaved a heavy sigh and promised herself this was the last time she'd put herself through this sort of thing. Nothing was going to come of this night…and she didn't want it to. She did want something more in her life…_someone_ in her life. But it wasn't Darren or Darrell or any of the others. No, life couldn't be that simple…

Well, she'd always enjoyed a challenge, and she'd certainly set herself one falling in love with Robbie Lewis.

He'd used to chatter on. He'd not been a jokester, he'd simply liked people and liked to listen and talk to them. And she'd like hearing him do it…well, she'd liked him. She'd missed out on that—focusing so much on her schooling…she'd—yeah, well…yeah…but really meeting someone, really being with someone who she could enjoy being with and listening to and talking to for the rest of her life…she'd missed out on that.

But he hadn't. He was happy with his wife and children and most days with his job for all he was anxiously awaiting an opening for promotion to inspector. And she'd enjoyed seeing and hearing that; in her experience it was a rare gift. But she hadn't coveted it for herself—well, she'd wanted something similar for herself, but she hadn't jealously coveted _him_…he'd been a friendly face at work, and she'd never considered him as anything more than that back then.

But that had been a long time ago and things had changed a good deal since then. She'd long since had to admit to herself if no one else that she very much wanted him to be more than a friendly face at work. Unfortunately, she'd also had acknowledge the fact that he might very well never feel the same for her—well, might very well never allow himself to feel the same for her. Because he did fancy her. She knew he did…and she knew if he ever was ready to love again, she stood a very good chance of being first in line.

A chance she wasn't about to throw away on the likes of Franco or Darrell. And if that meant she spent her evenings alone waiting, hoping he'd one day be able to put aside his grief and make it all worthwhile…well, so be it.

Even if that day never came? After she'd managed to convince Darrell she really did need to make an early night of it, she paused for a moment on the riverside where Lewis had stood gazing into the river and knew that after waiting this long for him, regardless of how lost the cause might be, she'd go right on waiting. She was too intelligent a woman to be where she was. Wasting her life, pining after a man who didn't love her now and quite likely never would. But…there wasn't a cure for what ailed her. Someone should have given her a good shake when she'd started to see him as more than a friendly face; it was far too late now.

When had things changed between them? Well, not between them. For her? When had she stopped seeing him as a just a friendly face? As odd as it seemed, probably that day he'd quit laughing and prattling on. That day in the lab when he'd watched Morse go with such a look of pain on his face that she'd understood finally and completely that for all Morse seemed to be the sort of boss any man would like to shake loose, he wasn't. Not to Lewis at any rate.* Lewis wasn't with him because he was the sort to just grin and bear it…he was there because he cared to be. That could have been the day she had looked at him and known there could have been something between them if he hadn't already been a married man…still waters run deep, and that glimpse into his depths might have been enough to tip the balance and begin to change the way she felt about him.

If so, she'd been careful to keep that safely hidden from him, and herself, while he'd still been married to Val, and even more so later when he'd been reeling from Val's death. She'd never, not once, thought 'here's my chance'; never seen Val's death as anything other than tragic. If she had…if the thought had ever come unbidden into her mind—it would have tainted every interaction she had with him thereafter. She'd never have been able to be there as a friend through those dark days. But somewhere between there and here…she'd fallen hard and had never yet found the strength or will to pick herself back up and walk away. And gazing into the river, she knew she never would.

*Inspector Morse _The Remorseful Day_

**_In the Woods_**

The body dumped in the ditch was a puzzle for sure. Laura couldn't recall another quite like it…rather livened up her morning. And she would have thought her report would have sparked some sign of interest from her favourite inspector: dead for some time but none of the usual signs of decomposition evident, dressed in his best suit with a clean white hanky in his top pocket and polished shoes on his feet, no underpants.

That last bit did draw a reaction. "No keks?" Lewis asked.

She put on her best Geordie accent and said, "Ah, you can take the lad out of Newcastle…" but hardly got a smile for her efforts. Dropping the accent, she noted, "Not your usual focused self, Robbie." He ignored that, and proved her point holding out his hand to help her out of the ditch. He definitely did not have his mind on the case or on her or he would have taken her arm instead of her gloved hand after she'd been messing around with a dead body…

Deciding not to recommend he find some hand sanitizer and that right fast and taking a stab at what might be distracting him, she asked, "Where's Hathaway?"

"On his holidays," he answered but that didn't seem to be his problem. "Did you ever meet Jack Cornish? Fast-track detective, destined for great things?"

"Yeah, I've met him," she admitted. "Why?"

"Well, it's just…we were always great mates, you know, cut from the same cloth and…" Laura tried to keep what she was thinking from showing on her face. It was apparent Lewis thought much more highly of Jack Cornish than she did…cut from the same cloth—thankfully not even close. Lewis either couldn't bring himself to say what his great mate Jack Cornish had done to worry him or he misread her look. He stumbled to a stop, sighed, shook his head, and said, "No, ignore me." She didn't want to because it was obvious he really was concerned about whatever Cornish had been up to, but…she really didn't want to get into a discussion about Cornish either. "Is that it?" he asked motioning toward the body still lying there waiting for her to get around to it.

"Afraid not," she said. "Saving the best till last—if I were to say all the usual offices have been performed?" she looked at him waiting for understanding to dawn but he shook his head. "The thing is, Robbie, this gentleman has already been put through the tender hands of an undertaker." Finally, Lewis focused his full attention on the investigation. They'd both gotten busy then on their parts of the job.

She did run into him later as she packed up her equipment to head back to the mortuary.

He was ferreting through the rubbish dumped in the ditch, and she called over to him, "Interesting?"

He read the best-before date off a sandwich wrapper with the uneaten crusts still in it. "That was what, last week?" he asked.

"You're a single bloke," she told him. "Zap it in the microwave—it'll be fine." She left him smiling after her.

**_Back at the Mortuary_**

He popped by later to hear what she'd learned…which didn't amount to anything. The embalming process hadn't left her much to work with…which in turn didn't leave him much to go on.

"And still no identification?" he asked her.

"Nope," she said. She couldn't quite keep the smile off her face as she added, "Been through all his pockets."

He pointed his finger at her and said, "You're enjoying this."

"I'm just wondering how you're going to start untangling it."

"With great skill."

"And without Hathaway," she noted as he started to walk to the door. He kept walking and she called after him, "Be like having one hand tied behind your back." He placed his right hand behind him and waved as he went out the door. It was her turn to smile after him.

**_Over Tea_**

"Oh, don't be grumpy," she ordered as was her wont. She wasn't known to be the sunniest soul on the block herself, but that never seemed to occur to her. He wasn't grumpy though...stewing a mite maybe. He still couldn't wrap his head around Jack Cornish leaving Louise and the boys, running off with that Faulkner woman, throwing his career away as though it meant nothing.

"Hathaway's having a holiday," she said because she'd apparently decided he couldn't survive without his sergeant.

And there was that too…Hathaway off on his do-goodery with his old church pals. And just maybe feeling the pull back to that sort of thing. It shouldn't have worried him, but it did. Policing had never seemed to really get its teeth into Hathaway. It wasn't in his blood like it was in Lewis' own or like he'd thought it was in Jack's. But Jack was up to who knew what, and Lewis had been wrong before. The last sergeant he'd worked with for any length of time had left the job and taken up blackmail… little wonder he didn't like his current sergeant going off to Pristina. Probably come back with ties to the Russian mafia.

"Poor James," Laura said after he'd filled her in on the truth of Hathaway's holiday. She wasn't taking it all seriously, and he supposed he wasn't either, but…

"Eh, get on. He'll fit straight back in with all of them. He wouldn't know fun if it jumped up and smacked him in the gob."

"Like you would?" she asked.

"Well, yeah—I've had me share."

"In the distant past," she said. Laughing at him. Something she did on quite a regular basis. He'd never enjoyed being the butt of a joke, never appreciated a bit of ragging. Except from her. He'd not even allowed Val that privilege, but Hobson—must be getting lax in his old age. Or just a bit soft. "Oh, but you did give yourself up to wild abandon the other night," she went on. He'd just taken a nice big mouthful and had to let his face ask what in the world she was on about now. "Friday? Drinking in the beauty of the river, standing in the dusk, and just gazing at the sight?"

"Ah," he said finally comprehending. He had strolled along the river, mulling over how to approach Jack and wishing Louise had asked anyone but him to try to talk sense into her errant husband…and trying to fathom what it was really all about. "Yeah, yeah," he said and couldn't help throwing in, "A body—well, I thought I saw a body…but…well, it wasn't. It was a log." There that should get her. She'd spend the rest of the day wondering if he'd meant that seriously or not…just desserts. "What?" he said innocently as she laughed.

A second later he was on the phone and a minute later he was off on the case.

"Name band. Cut off his wrist or ankle. Found about a hundred yards from the body. Something to work on," he told her. He motioned to the remnants of their tea and said, "Sorry. Your treat."

Even if money would have been an issue, she knew he'd spent far too many years on the receiving end of that sort of gambit to not make it up to her sooner or later. But money wasn't an issue and though he'd packed away his share of the food, she hadn't. Despite getting stuck with the bill, she smiled watching him go and then went on eating without him.

**_Over Doctor Whitby's Dead Body_**

When she arrived on scene, Lewis was carefully peering at her dead body from as close as he dared without donning a crime scene suit. It had been awhile since she'd seen the hand-on-the-tie maneuver that in years past all good detectives had adopted to keep their tie from flopping over a cadaver. Lewis had apparently never quite accepted the practice of wearing a crime scene even after all this time. Obviously, it was Hathaway who usually kept him on the straight and narrow. Old habits died hard; and she suspected Lewis subscribed to the 'if it was good enough for Morse, it's good enough for me' philosophy of police detection.

She didn't give him the dressing down he doubtlessly deserved. Not that she couldn't if she'd wanted—she could have gotten him an official reprimand if she'd a mind to. But he knew what he was about, and…well, he'd yet to contaminate a scene she had to process unlike far too many who were never caught without a suit yet went about without any regard to maintaining the integrity of the scene what so ever.

Besides, she was happy to see him. She was always happy to see him…well, almost always.

"You just can't get enough of me, can you?" she asked.

He mock-frowned at her and said, "I'll take out a restraining order if you don't pack it in."

It had taken her awhile to arrive, and he was the one with the preliminary report for her this time around. Why he'd caught this body was beyond her. Not with a murder case already on his desk…then again, Neil Strickley wasn't really a murder, was he?

And neither from the looks of it was Dr. Whitby. Another GP suicide most likely just as Lewis had said. "Ok," she told him. "I won't be here long. Reeks of whisky and the pills tell their own tale. Postmortem should be pretty straightforward."

As he turned to leave, he said, "That's what you said about Mr. Strickley—another fine mess you got me into." He left her with that, and it wasn't until the body was on the stretcher and on the way out the door that they caught up with each other again. Nothing much of interest really. Lewis obviously was missing having Hathaway at his shoulder, so she hung about a moment letting him recite the known facts of his case and throw out a few conjectures. But he was hot on the case, and she was a pathologist, not a detective.

**_At the Station_**

He'd turn into Morse if he wasn't careful. Brooding all the time. He stared at the photograph on the office shelf and thought about Jack—and would he ever be able to get his head around whatever was going on with Jack?—and the case, and seeing that poor, broken man at the crematory and for all he'd expected to recognize his own pain and grief in the man's face, failing to do so. Somehow he'd come out on the other side; he wasn't that man bowed under the blow of his wife's loss any longer.

"People don't change that much," he'd assured Louise, but…Jack seemed to have, and Lewis himself? Who was he if he wasn't Val's widowed husband? He'd been defined so long by his grief and loss that he might have become just as much as a stranger as the Jack Cornish who'd left his wife and sons and ran off with Tara Faulkner—if that's what he'd done. Lewis still couldn't believe Jack would have had anything to do with a woman like that. No. Jack had to be onto som—

Hobson's text was a welcome distraction from his thoughts. He met her at the door.

For all she insisted on always receiving a civil greeting, she wasn't all that up on issuing them. Without a hello or even a nod in greeting, she announced, "I'm not going to make you a happy man."

"I'm always happy—my face is misleading," he said pasting on a fake smile.

"The assumed suicide…"

"Might just be murder?" he guessed though with Dr. Whitby turning out to be Tara Faulkner's brother he'd long since figured that out.

"He was poisoned," she confirmed. "A mixture of PCP, methanol, and formaldehyde."

"Formaldehyde?" That was a new one on him…sadly there never seemed to be an end to ways people could think of to kill their fellowmen.

"Embalming fluid," she said. "Combined with the alcohol and diazepam—and there was some of it in his lungs."

Ah. "Any sign of bruising to indicate he'd been held down?"

"Possibly," she said, "but he's been face down on his desk all night, and it's very difficult to find bruising through lividity." Difficult but not impossible for someone like Hobson. Lewis gave her his best puppy dog face, and she rolled her eyes and grudgingly capitulated, "All right, I'll have another look."

"I'll try not to pester you," he promised, "but if you could…"

"Hurry it up? Don't push it…"

_**Halfway from There to Here** _

She placed her hands on his shoulders to demonstrate, and he quit worrying about how Dr. Whitby died and started thinking how easy it would be just to lean down and kiss her. She must have realized the same thing because her words had faltered there, just for an instant, and she'd pulled her hands back and hurried on with her explanation. He wondered what she'd do if she knew he wouldn't have minded. He'd had a few women kiss him whether he minded or not—Stephanie Fielding, his old sergeant, and Frances Woodvine had all had a go. And he'd be lying if they hadn't all given him pause and made him think about what he was doing being alone, but he hadn't been ready for what they'd been offering. And if he had been…well, it wouldn't have been to any of them he would have gone.

And now…after all those years of pain and grief and being alone, all those years holding those things tight and willfully refusing to let them go for fear he'd lose what little he had left of Val with them…he was ready to let them go, to accept he would never quit loving Val but he'd lost her all the same, ready to take hold on life and love if it would have him.

And there she was. Laura Hobson. And she would have him; for all she'd never forced a kiss on him, he'd have had to be dead not to know that. But they were both on the clock and duty called…

**_Along The Scenic Route_**

He'd forgotten this, how good it felt to hold hands with someone…that warm connection that carried with it the sure knowledge you weren't alone. That as long as you held on, you'd never be alone.

"We're out of step," she said looking down at their joined hands.

"That's a good sign, that is," he said with a smile, but he slowed down to rectify it anyway. They'd been walking along together for years now, and he'd long since learned to slow down his long-legged stride to match hers. How many hours had they strolled through the streets of Oxford, her arm linked in his like as not, her face turning up to smile at him, her eyes searching his for something he couldn't give?

He…well, he'd never not been aware of her. Never. Not since that first day she'd driven out to Blenheim and given Morse a run for his money.* He'd had Val then, and for all he'd noticed her and admired her spunk, he wasn't interested in her in that way. He'd noticed her because she never missed an opportunity to take Morse on in a way Lewis himself would never have both because he wouldn't have dared as he wouldn't have stood a chance of coming out on top and because he was Morse's sergeant. Usually, Lewis enjoyed watching her best the chief inspector though there were times when he couldn't help feeling sorry for poor Morse. Though never to Lewis, she could be cruel and no denying it.

He'd also noticed her because she was quite good at her job—something that mattered a great deal to a man in his profession. Pathologists were an odd lot, no denying that either...Morse's old friend Max who'd been the first pathologist Lewis had ever worked with, the various locums he'd had to deal with down through the years…yeah, he'd seen enough to know, on the whole, pathologists were just not quite normal. Not surprising seeing they spent their days up to their elbows in dead bodies. Even when they came across as regular folk, like Dr. Russell who'd been the pathologist before Laura, you had to wonder about them.

Russell, like Max before her, had been an excellent pathologist. She and Lewis had enjoyed a great deal of camaraderie, and if she had a peculiar nature Lewis had managed to avoid it. She'd been a good mate—not many in Oxford liked to reminisce about Newcastle with a homesick transplant, and he'd hated to see her move on. So, he'd been very pleased to learn that her replacement was a normal enough seeming sort and an able pathologist whose medical judgment could be relied on. They'd not immediately struck up a friendship like he had with Russell, and after he'd had his spat of trouble with the man, he'd been a bit uneasy when he'd learned she was seeing DCI Johnson. Though he always wondered if her early antagonism towards Morse hadn't been down to Johnson, if the DCI had badmouthed Lewis to her she hadn't seemed to hold it against him.

Down through the years, he'd slowly begun to rely on a lot more than her medical expertise. A lot more. Her friendship, her advice, her companionship…her. Though he'd had no call to rely on that, nor right, she'd always been there. Someone to rely on, someone to stand beside him when he worried over Morse there at the end, someone to sit beside him when he mourned his wife, someone to give him a bit of a kick when he'd almost lost himself in the bottle after Val had gone, someone to welcome him home when he came back from special assignment…and since then, if he'd needed someone, she'd been there.

And he'd known all that time that if he ever needed not just someone, but _her_, she'd be there. And that knowledge had been both terrible and comforting. Comforting because he had come to feel very much alone in the world. Him who'd never had to be alone, who'd gone almost straight from his parents' house to a shared life with Val; who'd always been one of the lads or Morse's sergeant and found being an inspector a lonely job after all of that.

And terrible because if it offered all of that it also asked it back of him…and after Val, he just hadn't had it to give. It wasn't that he hadn't known that people died or thought he and Val were different in that regard from everybody else…and it wasn't even that he thought he couldn't go on without her. Though he hadn't wanted to, surely, like everyone else in similar circumstances he'd known he had no choice, and for the kids he had—almost anyway. But, even so…he'd not been a whole man since losing Val, and he'd had nothing to give to Laura or anyone else.

Come to dinner, she'd said and he'd known she was giving him a chance to do what he'd started when he'd let the plans for that trip to Glyndebourne fall into place. And what he'd kept alive every time he went to her for advice, for company, for comfort. What she needed and wanted and deserved. What he'd failed to give her that had more than likely sent her out with Franco. And he'd accepted her invitation because, despite everything, he'd wanted to be the one with her instead of Franco. He not only owed her that for all she'd done and been through the years, but he'd wanted it himself…to break out of his lethargy and sorrow and find the courage to take her up on her unvoiced offer, to live his life again, to love and be loved. He'd wanted it, but he hadn't managed it.

She'd given him that last chance—or he'd been afraid at the time it was a last chance. She'd plied him with garlic bread and they'd laughed over old times and even got a bit weepy in their wine thinking of Morse and Strange and the world that seemed so far removed from them…but in the end, she'd looked deep into his eyes and let him off the hook.

"It's getting late," she'd said. "I…suppose…you need to get home?"

He'd swallowed hard and tried to dig out something else but in the end all that had come out was, "Aye, and let you get off to bed…early days tomorrow, eh?"

She'd made a brave attempt at a smile and said, "Yes, early days." And she'd started to tidy up their glasses and left him to see himself out. And he'd well-known why she hadn't seen him to the door, why, in fact, she'd given him the chance to run…and if he'd wondered before that night if she only fancied him or truly loved him—he'd have known then. But he'd gone off home anyway. Kicking himself all the way, knowing that if he couldn't love her like she deserved, he should be man enough to put an end to her waiting. And knowing he wasn't. He needed her too badly just to let her go.

And now, here he was, holding her hand and knowing somehow he'd turned a corner and she was still there. He hadn't lost her to Franco or anyone else. She'd waited, and finally, he—

And that's when he saw the smoke pouring out of the narrowboat; he dropped her hand and started running.

"Be careful, Robbie!" she called after him. "There'll be gas bottles!" Not that he needed her to tell him, of course, there'd be gas bottles ready and waiting to explode and turn the boat into nothing but smoldering splinters…and him. She ran a few paces behind him and then stumbled to a stop. Somehow she managed to put the emergency call through, somehow she managed to make sure help was on the way…and then she ran closer, but she couldn't join him in the rush to save the girl if he could. She stopped there, gasping for air, her heart clenching in her chest, her eyes filling with tears, and her hand still warm from his…

And all the time he was…all that smoke and the flames behind it, and he was…the minutes ticking by or were they hours? No let up to the smoke, no welcome sound of sirens approaching at high speed. Just the lapping of the water, the growing roar of the flames…_come on, Robbie—shouldn't you be coughing in all that smoke? Shouldn't the boat be rocking as you race through it looking for the girl? Shouldn't there be more than this horrible, ominous silence and this gulf opening beneath my feet—_

And then he was there, dumping the limp body (and God forgive her, for all he'd just risked his life to save the girl, at that moment she'd not given one thought to whether there was any life in that body), looking to her for help in pulling the girl away from the burning boat because the smoke was burning his lungs and he wasn't far from going down himself. But neither was she…neither was she.

But, he wouldn't be getting to safety until the girl was. And that was what moved her; she leaped to his aid fast enough then—and they managed to get the three of them clear before the boat went up.

It was so loud, so sudden, so strong…she didn't know whether the blast itself had flung them all into a huddle or if Lewis had pushed her down over the girl and thrown himself over them in an effort to protect them from the worst of it…she didn't even know for a second or two if they'd survived. But they had…and the girl too, weakly coughing under her and blinking unseeingly up through the smoke. Lewis rocked back onto his heels and pulled her along with him. He held her there for a moment, and his ragged breathing strong and loud in her ear centered her and kept her from collapsing into a heap.

"All right?" he asked her, but she couldn't answer him. She scrambled away from him to see to the girl instead. Making a quick assessment, she turned to him and nodded.

"She should be okay," she told him.

He gave her that look of his that said he knew she wasn't telling him something, but she hadn't gone into the boat, his body had shielded her from the blast, why shouldn't she be all right? No reason he'd want to know.

"How about you? You all right?" she asked him, leaving the girl's side to run a hand down his back and assure herself he hadn't been hit by flying debris.

He rubbed his hand under his nose and the back of his head and said, "Seem to be." Help arrived then, took the girl off to hospital, whisked him away to make sure he'd not taken in a toxic breath of smoke and wasn't going to keel over in the next little bit. Before he'd gone, he'd caught her arm and said, "Will you meet me when you're off work?" Work. He expected her to go to work when she'd just stood there and almost watched him die.

Did he really have no idea what he'd just done to her? Did he really think she could almost lose him and not—well, she didn't have him, did she? Her hand in his had felt so—but he'd dropped it soon enough, dropped it and went running off leaving her standing there without him…

"Please," he said, and maybe he really didn't know that he didn't have to ask.

"Of course," she said. In contrast to her shaking insides, her voice sounded steady as they picked a time and place. He frowned at the hovering paramedics, and she straightened her back, turned, and left him to them though leaving his side was the last thing she wanted to do.

Mindful that he might be watching her as she went, she tried to stride purposefully off, but several minutes later she realized she'd been walking aimlessly along in the wrong direction if she were going to work. She wasn't. She'd thought that she'd go that way, make sure the lab was covered, and pick up her car…just as well, she hadn't. Who knows where she might have found herself if she'd been driving?

He did watch her go. Her quiet strength, as always, amazed him and left him shaking his head admiringly after her. It was frightening that. How much he suddenly knew he needed her and how so very self-sufficient she was…still, if she'd been any different, she'd long since have given him up as a lost cause.

There had been that moment, when he'd held her after the blast, when she'd trembled in his arms, and he'd been frightened for her. And she hadn't answered his 'all right?', but she'd been quick and sure in her doctoring of the girl…and maybe it was only him needing her to hold him and promise him everything was all right that had made him think she could use his strength and comfort for once.

In the boat, wildly lurching about in the cramped quarters, trying to find the girl through the smoke, beginning to wonder if he'd be able to find the door by the time he had…he hadn't thought of Val, but of Laura. It had been her strength he'd called upon to make that last push, find the girl, and manage to stumble out with her heavy and limp in his arms. Before the smoke had even cleared from his eyes, she'd been who he'd looked for. And she'd been right there. Like he'd known she'd be. Like she'd always been. Like he always wanted her to be…needed her to be. Because she might not need him, but he very much needed her.

*Inspector Morse _The Way Through the Woods_

**_At The Randolph_**

"I'm just turning over a page on a new chapter," he told her.

Questions and possibilities flitted across her face as she struggled to take in what he was saying. After the drama of the day, after the worry (and yes, she _knew_ the hospital had given him a once over and she'd been doing the same ever since they'd met up and she _knew_ he'd somehow survived his earlier brush with death, but she wasn't finding it that easy to shake off)…well, maybe she'd just been looking for something else to worry about thinking that all the funeral stuff might be getting to him, making him think even more than usual of Val. Still, she'd not seen this coming and wasn't at all sure what it foretold.

"Right," she said. She nodded her head and couldn't help smiling, and he smiled and nodded back at her over his drink. But, his smile slipped away and was replaced with a worried frown. "What?" she asked.

He scratched the back of his head and said, "Well…I'm thinking that—well, I'm hoping that, maybe that would…" he cleared his throat nervously before pushing on, "… put the two of us on…the same page, like."

Hoping she wasn't about to send him running, she asked, "And would that be the page where she tells him she loves him?"

The relief that washed over his face almost outweighed everything else there. Almost. He breathed out a quiet breath and looked at her in a way she'd only dreamed of and said, "My favourite page." And then he leaned over and kissed her. Like she'd wanted him to a thousand times before, like she'd thought he never would.

When she could breathe again, she said, "Mine too…" He grinned at her in response and kissed her again.

Somewhere in the middle of that kiss, he came up for air enough to say, "I suppose there are things we should talk about?"

As it drew to an end, she pulled back to look at him and said, "After all these years, there's only one thing."

He didn't hesitate, didn't turn away, didn't keep her waiting. "Oh, aye, I love you, too," he said. She closed her eyes and let his answer wash through her…and she was right, those words and the truth behind them were all she needed to hear. But they weren't all she needed.

He must have felt the same or maybe just read the need in her face because he took her hand and said, "Come on." And if he would have told her he was flying her up into the stars, she would have believed him. "I'll take you home," he said instead, and for one awful moment as he pulled her to her feet, she remembered he had a case on and was afraid he meant to really just run her home on his way back to it. But he touched his hand to her face and asked, "Would that be my place or yours?" And she knew, after all those years, it really was that easy.

**_In The Hallway_**

And the next morning, standing in the hallway outside the lab, sipping coffee, and playing it cool. All professional…except for that slight smile of his, and that of her own, when she'd come through the door. But, otherwise…it wasn't that they'd talked about how they were going to play it, but she did have a reputation to maintain, and it was her staff and students on the other side of the bank of windows lining the lab. She turned her back to them and kept her comments to the case, and he seemed happy enough to follow her lead.

He was still using her in place of Hathaway talking things through…she could almost hear the gears turning as they spoke, and she could see the thoughts flying across his face as the light bulb went off in that head of his.

"Should I be getting on with something?" she asked, trying to bring him back to the hallway where they stood.

"Repatriation," he said and went on a bit about bodies being brought back from abroad as though he expected the same light to dawn on her. Hathaway rang through before she'd caught on. "Just in time," Lewis said, and she agreed.

She easily followed most of the one-sided conversation that followed though what Lewis' "I had a weekend in Wales once' was in response to she wasn't sure. Nor was she really sure why Lewis decided to put the call on loud speaker so she could join the conversation. And then there they stood, talking on speakerphone to Hathaway as though he were their son off to college. Lewis scowling at her and saying, "Can we do all that when he gets back?" And her shaking her head at his "You ever tried one of these electronic cigarettes? To help you give up the habit?" Like they were a long-married couple…well, right up until Lewis hung up the phone and instead of saying a 'Sounds like the lad's adjusting well' sort of comment, he said, "How much crystal meth do you reckon you could hide in a coffin?"

**_At Iffley Lock_**

"When I do, do you fancy a ride one night after work?" he asked, and it was hardly his fault she took it the wrong way. He held her in his arms as they laughed and looking down at her…

"How am I going to stop being half a couple?" Louise Cornish had asked earlier.

"You'll get there," Lewis had assured her with a certainty he wouldn't have had before the last few days.

"Well, I'm never going to love anyone again," she'd told him like an echo of the refrain he'd lived with for far too long. Looking down into Laura Hobson's laughing face, he knew it was refrain he didn't have to live with anymore.

**_At the White Horse_**

He nodded his head towards Innocent and the wanderer returned home, and her embarrassment at being caught kissing him was a surprise…a modern woman, he'd always seen her as. Sure of herself in every way and almost arrogant in it, but…well, not much he could have done to save her her blushes. He'd hardly expected her to throw herself on him—not that he minded—she'd been reserved enough that morning at the lab. He would have given her a shout about the chief super inviting herself along if he'd had time but that had been quite last minute, and he hadn't thought…well, hardly the end of the world being caught out together, was it? They were grown folks and word would get around soon enough at any rate. It always did. And he didn't mind at all being seen with her.

He followed her to the bar and squeezed her hand reassuringly and laughed while she ruefully shook her head. And he was still laughing after he'd left her there to make his way back to Innocent and Hathaway and make their excuses. Not that he didn't think that they might as well just go ahead and endure the smirks and sly comments then as later. No help for it. But, he didn't mind forgoing his beer if it meant it made her happy.

Just being with her was enough for him. He smiled happily as he put his arm around her and matched his steps to hers.

_Thanks to BTA for the push…hope you don't regret it!_

_As a true Star Trek fan (as in if it doesn't have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy it isn't 'really' Star Trek) I want to make it clear that though I've drawn the title of this story from _Where My Heart Will Take Me (Faith of The Heart) _written by Diane Warren which happens to be the opening theme to Star Trek_ Enterprise, _it is not my fault it is stuck in my head and rather appropriately decided to run around in my mind as I wrote this piece…it's just that I live in a house with some very undiscerning folks who all seem to be somewhat hard of hearing and it's impossible to get them to turn the volume down to a reasonable level. Apparently the song has wormed its way into my mind in that way, because I assure you I have never sat through even one episode…_


End file.
